Review and Analysis of the Benefits, Purposes, and Motivations Associated with Community Gardening in the United States

Illustration: Caldecott, 1885.

Paper in the Journal of Community Practice

By Carrie Drapera; Darcy Freedman
Journal of Community Practice
Dec 1, 2010

Abstract

Community gardens have been a part of modern American culture since the late 19th century. Participation in community gardening has ebbed and flowed in response to changing socioeconomic conditions, and thus the current economic recession has reheightened public interest. In a review of the scholarly literature from 1999 to 2010, rigorous quantitative research studies on the effects of community gardens are found to be sparse; however, a larger body of qualitative data is available. Eleven themes related to the purposes, benefits of, and motivations for participating in community gardens are identified. Community gardens can serve as an effective tool for community-based practitioners in carrying out their roles within the arenas of organizing, development, and change.

Conclusion

Community gardening is a more than a century old tradition in the United States, and is still just as needed today as during the formative years of the 1890s. With high unemployment rates, increasing food insecurity, and the ever-growing prevalence of obese Americans, community gardens have the potential to simultaneously alleviate multiple societal ills, while at the same time highlighting the assets of communities. Current research serves as a positive beginning in discovering the benefits, purposes, and motivations associated with community gardening, but there is a need to expand upon the variables and populations examined, utilizing more rigorous research methodologies.

Community-based practitioners ought to be involved in the development of this new line of evidence related to community gardening because many of the goals of community practice may be achieved through gardening models of change. With more compelling evidence to support community gardens, this tool for change may become even more common in American communities, and the social, health, economic, and environmental benefits associated with gardening will be realized on a broader scale. Moreover, community gardening ought to be adopted by community-based practitioners because it easily lends itself to the work of the profession, as gardens are shown to be meaningful within a wide variety of settings where practitioners are already present, such as schools, hospitals, prisons, residential treatment facilities, not-for-profit organizations, and within the political realm.

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